Perhaps.
He raked his hands through his wet hair, glancing up when a light went on next door. Were the Coltons home? They might still have his spare key. Allie, who lived outside of town with her own family now, had said her parents were loving California so much they’d instructed her to pack up their parkas and snow boots and take them to Goodwill. But that had been a while back.
Zack angled his head. A light was on in the master bedroom, painting the windowpanes a buttery gold through a pair of sheer curtains. Tenants, maybe.
A woman in a towel and nothing else walked past the lit window. An instantaneous heat blowtorched his groin.
Because the towel was on her head.
Leaving the rest of her…
Naked.
“Sweet Mary,” said Zack’s lips, all on their own.
The rest of him was pleading. Please come back.
He stared, no longer feeling the dampness or the cold. Oxygen was short in his lungs. He stood tall, crossing his arms on top of his head, sucking in the night air without noticing the lilac’s lingering scent.
His chest expanded.
His gaze fixed on the partly raised window.
Imagine that. The Coltons’ new tenant was either completely uninhibited or had lived in the house long enough to take the lack of neighbors for granted. Possibly she didn’t realize how clearly one could see through the flimsy curtains she’d drawn across the window. Particularly with the light on.
If that were the case, he should look away.
He meant to. Until she came back. And sat, presumably at the foot of the bed, although he couldn’t quite tell from his ground-level position.
After a moment of fiddling, she held out one arm and luxuriously stroked the opposite palm across it. Lotion, he thought, catching the glisten of pearly moisture on pale skin. Her palms rubbed together. Eyes closed, she threw back her turbanned head. Arched her throat. Slick fingers slithered across her exposed neck and delicate collarbone in a languid caress.
One palm slid to her nape. Her head lolled, turning her face toward the window. The curtains fluttered, giving Zack a glimpse of starkly lit detail. She was beautiful. Creamy skin, cheeks tinged with a pink warmth from the bath. Full, pursed lips. Thick lashes, dark brows, drawn like black ink against the cameo of her face.
Zack blinked. What was he doing—concentrating on her face? Sheesh. If he was going to be crude, might as well do it right.
His gaze lowered incrementally, in sync with her hands. She rubbed lotion over her upper chest, then slid both hands lower, cupping her left breast, lifting it slightly. His mouth watered, imagining the weight of it in his own palm, the flavor of it on his tongue. The breast was small, but full and round, centered by a pale brown areola.
The curtains billowed, giving him a clearer look. Hands clenching, eyes narrowing, he concentrated his vision down to a laser point as the woman’s nipple drew into a small tight bead.
Desire raced his pulse. She was incredible. A fantasy sprung to life.
The breeze died, dropping the sheer veil of fabric into place. Still, he couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to. The woman was massaging a sheen of lotion into her breast, carelessly grazing her nails over the knotted nipple. He ached to give it more attention. Only when she reached again for the lotion, blocking his intimate view, did he remember where he was and what he was doing.
Ogling. Leering.
And in Quimby, too. Favored son or not, the chief of police would slam Zack into a jail cell for committing such a crime against common decency. Regardless of the rest of the world, the law-abiding local citizenry still claimed to believe in modesty and morality.
Zack backed toward the deep shadows beneath the porch. Slowly. Even though the woman was rubbing lotion into her other breast with a circular motion that made his blood run hot from his scalp all the way down to the numbed soles of his bare feet.
She reached forward, folding a leg up to her chest. The motion made the coiled towel tumble from her head, releasing a thick skein of wet dark hair. With a sound of dismay, she tossed back her head—and froze. Her eyes widened, their stricken gaze glued to the fluttering curtain.
Zack eased toward the shadows.
With the towel bunched against her bare breasts, the woman flew to the window and peered out. Her mouth was open. She seemed to be breathing hard, her face aflame beneath the sheaf of dark hair. He took another big step backward, trusting the overhang of the porch roof that now blocked his view would deny hers as well.
After a long tense moment and one last breathy exclamation, he heard the sash slam and the clatter of blinds descending with unseemly speed. Had she spotted him?
The probability made him smile.
Mmm. Turned out his early, unexpected homecoming had its pluses after all.
CATHY’S VOICE shook as she spoke into the cordless phone. “What does Zack Brody look like?”
“You’ve seen photos,” said Julia Knox, off-handedly. Confused that her embarrassment was sprinkled with what seemed a lot like titillation, Cathy hadn’t explained why she was asking.
“I’ve seen Laurel’s engagement photo. The one she uses as a pincushion.” Cathy squinted as she parted the slatted blinds. The Brody house next door was dark and silent; perhaps she’d been mistaken. Which could be worse. If the peeper wasn’t Zack Brody, then who…? Did she want the frying pan or the fire?
No choice. “What does he look like without a gazillion pins sticking out of his face?”
Julia chuckled. “Oh, he’s a handsome sonovagun.”
Cathy gritted her teeth. “Well, gosh, I know that.”
Zack Brody’s looks were as legendary as the rest of him. There were those who said he should have followed Eunice LaSalle to Hollywood; the younger generation was more likely to suggest a male modeling career in New York. His photographs were prominent in several locations throughout Quimby, including athletic team pictures in the trophy cases at the high school and an award-winning senior photo on permanent display at the local photography studio. Good old Heartbreak was even in evidence at city hall. When Cathy had gone to get her business license, there was a black-and-white Zack smiling out at her, snapped in the act of receiving a commendation from the mayor for his lifesaving rescue of Faith Fagan at Mirror Lake. Naturally, she’d studied the shot. Zack’s charisma had shone even in a still photograph. He was handsome, clean-cut, very Kennedyesque in the best of ways. But, at twenty, still a boy.
Cathy said as much to Julia, wanting to know what he might look like now…when he was stripped to the waist, every bared muscle wet and glistening. Without her glasses, she hadn’t gotten a clear look at his face. But the body had left a lasting impression.
“Ah, there you go.” Julia sounded far too cheerful. “Zack only gets better looking as he ages. He’s an adult now, you see, not just an exceptionally handsome young man. His masculine pulchritude’s at full power.”
You
